Okay here it is - DAY 1 after the elections. I am going to share with you my thoughts and analysis of womens political representation. Honest and Frank. I have been following closely and analysing the results of our general elections over the last four general elections and a by-election. When I received the final list of female candidates vying in this years general elections - I basically signaled out who out of the women would get the highest % of votes per constituency against the number of registered candidates. I was only able to do this based on the pattern I have seen in terms of the last four elections, the patter and behaviour of workplace promotions - particularly in the civil service sector and the attitude and belief systems of educated women that I have conversed with over the years. So heres the thing: Vika Fusimalohi - from the Eastern District (far from town) was predicted to have the most votes by % against the number registered to vote in her constituency. Why? Vikas profile both education, work and community and church life is unique to Vikas constituency. There is not another women in Vikas constituency who can match her profile - hence there is NO FEAR of COMPETITION from or by other women! Do you get where Im going with this? There is less competition stacked up against Vika from her women folk and what is left of this is support and encouragement for Vika. Whilst we had Tania and Seini - also based out in the eastern district - their profiling was questioned (not enough experience, education background not sufficient etc) so in terms of gaining like Vika, they instead lost out. Because they couldnt (unfortunately no fault of their own) stack up to the UNIQUENESS that Vikas cards represented. We look now to Sipola - HER CHANCES in terms of UNIQUENESS is not so isolated as compared to Vika F. Sipolas constituency is also more closer to town. There were more competing interests. Remember whilst Sipola has a teaching background - she STILL hails from the constituency that outgoing MoET Dr. Ana Taufeulungaki hails from. Her uniqueness was therefore vulnerable to attacks and competing against this was challenging. What can you do better than Dr. Ana? Sipola did however manage to get herself onto the party list of the PTOA. This is in fact I believe what pushed Sipolas numbers up! The hard-core PTOA voters would have out of loyalty have ticked her name at the ballot box hoping for a sweeping majority win for PTOA. If Sipola had not been part of the PTOA party list - her numbers would, I believe, have been much lower. We now get into NUKUALOFA - BOOM! This is THE HOT SPOT for women trying to get into Parliament. My analysis over the last 4 elections has again resulted in the same findings! You ready for it? There are TOO MANY EDUCATED AND SUCCESSFUL WOMEN LIVING IN THE NUKUALOFA AREA - AND WHEN YOU HAVE TOO MANY SUCCESSFUL WOMEN - THE COMPETITION TO GET INTO PARLIAMENT GETS THAT MUCH HARDER!!!!! A women with success will not want to see another women overriding her own success. Women simply do not support womens promotions, successes and career developments. PARTICULARLY women who already have a stint of success and refuse to have the praise and worship SHIFT from her. So its no WONDER that the women running in the town electorates (Ana Bing Fonua, Pesi Baker, Gabriella Blake, Mele Amanaki, Emeline Tuita, Siketi Fuko) got the numbers that they got! The majority of the women in their constituencies would NOT have voted for them. Full stop. It is the women voters (who outnumber the male voters) who could have made a huge change in these elections. Competing against the PTOA was the biggest challenge on Tongatapu - and we could have made history if only we had a little more FAITH in our women! We already know how our MEN vote and their belief systems - why are we reiterating these dis-empowering ideologies??? BUT in saying that. Why do we not support other women??? It comes right back to PATRIARCHY and the way we do things - the way we COMPETE to get mens attention and the way we shove over our own womenfolk for the sake of keeping our men happy! Something NEEDS TO CHANGE!!! why do we have to be UNIQUE to have a chance??? Why cant we just SUPPORT EACHOTHER and see the bigger picture! Move past it ! When you INVEST in a woman - you invest in her FAMILY, in her COMMUNITY and in the entire NATION! You educate a little girl she will have a better chance at getting a good job - once she gets that good job - her entire investment is focused on developing every member of the family and the home - when she improves the status of her family - she improves the status of her village and community and when the status of the village and the community is improved the status of the nation is BETTER because of it! So why do keep pushing women away????
Posted on: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 00:30:20 +0000